Friday, 15 July 2011

Another reply from Mark

I'll be honest: I'm beginning to quite like the guy... and great to hear his sorrow is "genuine". That's important, right?

Dear Dominic

Thank you for your email and I am sorry for Tuesdays delay.

We had to cancel our 20:51 to Oxford due to a problem with the PA address system (hence why the cancellation itself wasn't announced on the train). Being a safety issue, we couldn't ignore it. Unfortunately, there was no replacement train we could step up into service and therefore we did have to ask customers to wait for the next service.

I appreciate this meant that the train you travelled on was crowded and I am genuinely sorry for yet another disappointing journey.

Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time

"War and Peace on the Oxford to London line"

Dramatis personae

Mark Hopwood - Managing Director of First Great Western trains

Sue Evans - Director of Communications for First Great Western trains

Dominic - that's me. I'm unhappy with Mark and Sue.

About me

My name is Dominic. For two years I commuted between Oxford and London on First Great Western trains. In late June 2011, after 14 months of paying around £450 a month for utterly appalling service, I decided to speak up.

Every time my train was delayed, I wrote to the Managing Director and Director of Communications for FGW trains - and the length of my email reflected the length of that day's delay... the idea being that I would waste the same amount of their time as they had wasted mine.

I kept it up for nine months - during which time I wrote around 100,000 words in 97 letters, reflecting over 24 hours of delays to my commute.

What follows are those letters - and their replies. Nothing is edited.

(Also: thanks to all who have contacted me to say how much they've sympathised, empathised or enjoyed these letters. It means a lot, honestly.)